A/N: This was my favorite prompt, and yet I couldn't make it a 5k words as I wanted in the beginning. Anyway, I hope you all like it. :D

Ladybug had been acting weird.

At first he thought she was just going through some kind of trouble related to her personal life, so he decided not to pry into her private business and make her shut away from him even more. And since she wasn't comfortable with bringing the subject up first, he wouldn't force her to talk about it. So, every night on patrol, he would act like he didn't notice her odd behavior, acting like Chat Noir always did.

But then she started to look depressed around him too, both Chat and Adrien, and he started to wonder if he was doing anything wrong.

He paid careful attention to her after that, trying to understand on his own what had been troubling her, looking for clues on their conversations and her body language of what she had been so reluctant to share with him. Trying to help her without pressuring her to spill whatever secrets she was keeping from him.

The problem was that Ladybug was excellent at hiding things from both Chat Noir and Adrien, especially if it was related to her secret identity. He would analyze her over and over again, in an attempt to make sense of the signs she kept showing, but couldn't pinpoint exactly what was causing them.

His girlfriend was great at everything, including pretending there was nothing wrong with her, and that frustrated him.

So one night, after she once again avoided his gaze and changed the topic of their conversation with a detached and automatic voice he gave up on being discreet and cupped her face with his hands, turning her eyes to his.

"You can tell me what's wrong, you know."

She shakes her head and opens her mouth to deny everything, but he doesn't let her. He knows there's something going on, and by the expression on his face, she knows he won't rest until he finds out what had been bothering her.

She sighs then, giving up the fight before it even started, raising her hands to take his from her face and holding them together.

"It's too embarrassing…" she finally says in a small voice, eyes down to their interlaced fingers on her lap.

"Tell me." he whispers, leaning down and closer to her.

"I was just wondering…", she starts a little uneasy, "About this... This thing between us… And I guess… I don't know how to say it...", she shakes her head as she loses her line of thought.

A cold shiver goes down his back, heart freezing and an unreasonable fear choking in his throat.

"Did I do anything wrong?"

"No, of course not!" She rushes to ease his worries and reassure him, "It's not because of you, you've been perfect, it's... It's me actually." She says simply, and he stays silent for a moment, processing what she had just told him.

"So you're saying that…"

"Let me explain." she interrupted him, holding him by his shoulders, before he got himself more worried than he already was, before taking a deep breath and spilling everything out at once "I'm scared. And I know that I shouldn't be because I'm Ladybug, and Ladybug fears nothing, but I don't want to lose you and yet I know that the moment my mask comes off all of this is over, so I can't tell you who I am, but I can't be unfair to you and never let you know and I don't want to risk all of this, but I'm scared and now I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Okay. Okay." he took her in his arms in an attempt to both interrupt and calm her down. "I got it. Even though you rambled a lot." He tried to joke and she tried to laugh, but it sounded like an animal being squeezed.

"Sorry." she choked a little, stopping the tears from drenching his shirt.

"Don't be. If anything I should be the one apologizing for making you feel this way."

"You didn't-"

"I didn't give you enough assurance, and now you're feeling insecure." He said with a firm voice, his heart a little moved. "I'm sorry. I should have told you more times that I love you, whoever you are."

She sighs another time, this time preparing herself for an argument.

"You love a mask." her voice is now firm. "Adrien you-"

"No." he cuts her, before she starts her recurrent speech.

"Would you recognize me without it?" she presses on, her voice now eager instead of sad.

"Well, if I could then your mask wouldn't make a sense in the first place!" He retorts. "Would your parents recognize you without it? Would Chat Noir recognize you? Would you recognize Chat Noir?" his voice was just as resolute as hers was whenever she used the 'you don't know who I really am' argument.

"Chat Noir is different…"

"But would you?"

She stays silent for a while, trying to find a way to answer him back. She can already see the direction that his argument is going to, but he's so reasonable that she just can't contradict him and she has no option but to agree with him at the end.

"I don't think so." she yields.

"Do you trust him any less?"

"No…" she lowers her shoulders, accepting defeat.

"There." He cups her face with his hands once more, this time bringing her lips closer to his "I'd love you without the mask just as much."

Maybe even more.